THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1953.
BEGINNING TODAY
T
T,
QUE
DUKE OF WINDSOR'S
CORONATION
down
toolk
Queen Elizabeth II, my The Soviet occupation the
I do not propose to recount here the ceremonial details of
ut
forth,
observation:
century.
concerning
RELATIONS
IN comparing
of their rulers is of course un-
It is cause
more than ten
the circum-in stances of the forthcoming
coronation of Queca Elizabeth 11, I am struck by the fact that while the Briush monarchy has remained, the dynasties of con- ve linental Europe have meanwhile
with the two that I witnessed,
been all but decimated.
receiv
have
war
one
of
ttons"-Queen Victon rela- been better demonstrated
n
FAIRY TALE
"with
The general
CONTRASTS
of found change and
2011
09 ຄ
even
the
has
MEMOIRS
In
SUMPTUOUS
POSTPONED
Edward
my
VII
In
event.
A
:
ANOTHER CHINA MAIL EXCLUSIVE
OVERCOME
tancous
ds
reser
Indla over which the last war the hereditary siger the Boer War, had been anxiety my parents were 'call actocerar describe how the
SIX DECADES Archblahop pet for the coronation was Dr Frederick Tem- I of present-day life and politics of IT is impossible in the context the visiting potentates and represent the King at functio tople, dropping on his kice to do to convey an adequate impression
so enfeebled by homage, was
of the away exercised by Victoria age and overcome by emotion as a constitutional monarch in a that could not be cancelled.
that he could not rise; of how damocratic society. Her ANTI-CLIMAX
the King helped him to his fect decades on the throne had given and of How the old Primate at her, an almost unequalled store collapsed entirely, bewailing to matters. Her blood relationship the conclusion of the service of itnowledge of constitutional his fellow prelates, "It's not my with many of the reigning Bourse head; it's my legs."
of Europe imparted to her views of foreign affairs a personal
East
six
Insight and understanding that
few docec challenge. Victoria had dealt with no less than ten
and It..
been crowned. In a recess be- box seat, very handsome in the afterwarder. Finch told left, if not,émpty handed, at least
crown on
than
Ten days after the birth of the spurs, the gloves, the canopy the coupe of events. Under paration for the peat
had HAVE undertaken to Erought him down but sthi un-.
three,
commanded D robes and the coronet of the this future queen the coal and all the other neiledes of the British system that is the Along the processional route we Guards Brigade in the Crimean Prince of Wales on, his head, put
certain broken in spirit.
prerogative of Parliament. watelied hundreds of carpenters War. The Duke of Connaugh), advanced up the steps of the Then the social upheaval pro- miners of Britain struck, Shurt- regalla that symbolike itte attri of thoughts
mino
duced by the second world war ly afterwards the Trado 17olon butes of Kingshly, she should Nevertheless, because of his or creeting vast wooden stands my grandfather's youngest throne to kneel there in lial evoked--by. the took toll of four more
a nationwide appoint hier oftendais:s from her exalted position Il la pos- of the Congress called
while other artisans festoonest living brother Arthur had humility, After realting the oath the among the miners, the scientista, sible for a monarch by the in- the streets with bright bunting led another Guards Brigade in at fenity he rose to his feet, proaching coronation of surviving European monarchies, strike in sympathy
the miners thereby paralysing the
the the farmers the steel fluchce of example and per- and pulated emblems und soar- Egypt against Aribi Pasha in touched the King's crown, and whole country. All transporta workers. "These," he says, "are squality, to impart a character ing arches. In the course of
1882, in the punitive campaign kitsed him upon the check. My Balkans was followed by niece. I agreed to do so Balk:
and colouring to an eto in a these excursions with Mr Han of on stopped; factories were idle the soil of the earth."
that ushered. In the long period grandfather was moved to em- only because my years of fumania, Yugoslavia and Bul for lack of power,
expulsion of the boy, kinks
The British aristocracy has matiner that lies quite outside sell we saw practice parades of British occupation of that brace him in a sudden spon- certainly been damned
day-to-day by the
functions scite strike was over by the time she
of for troops and often we would country. service in furthering the in- garia. And finally, by piebiscite strik
He gesture which lifted the claro enemies but government.
para u string of magnificent
out of formality. When terests of the British Em- in 1946, the house of Savoy in was three weeks old. Still, it its
atate coaches being given
nine years later it came my turn jire would seem to qualify ly gave way to a republic, was an ominous birthright for a I in common with many of my
compatriots reign
to would hate
Prince of Wales to render Irial outing. The parks n! Whereas In my youth twenty royal princess destined to
London had been
homage believe that it wit doomed.
father to my transformed ime to write on this subject monarchies held sway оп the twenty-alx years later over
the scars Fortunately it too includes its
into lentod camps for detach-
FTER a lapse of more than monarch, I was to cxp
experiencs more authoritatively than Continent of Europe, totlay only people still bearing
Anty years many incidents myself the emotione he must most. To be sure, the net six remain-those of Denmarie, of a social conflict that may not essential proportion of the "salt NOW therefore that my niece ments of colonial troops thin
of the earth."
has entered upon the stage had come to Great Britain from of this undeniably magnificent have felt on this occasion. of being crowned was one eglum and Greece. Sweden, Norway,
For centuries it Holland, yet have run ita course.
Britain provided To certain extent the con-
Becaure my grandfather was a with of history she knows full well all parts of the British Empire. event have unfortunately faded
I remember being taken to one
from my memory? and in any genial sad ample men wäh a. condition of kingship which
sequences of that uneasy berit leaders in polities and war. that the manner, in which sho 1. for reasons that by now
age are now visible in the affairs But while its prestige remains chooses to exert her queasly given over entirely to Indian case the mind of an eight-year ling for people, and a covenopo- THEIR PRIDE
Influence. indeal. the very soldiers, and at that tentier age old boy was hardly capable of litan laste for good living, his thu great Commonwealth high there can be no question must be fairly well known,
scared of the bearded taking it all in. Years later reign & chiefly remembered for over which she has been called but that its power and influence nature of her responses, will be being
It fact compared with the netions
ita gaiety and exuborance. But never attained during my ŋjMAT the people of the United upon to reign. While she has have been diminished.
of Sliths from the Punjab and the Finch used to tell us how at a her predecessors. With
tense moment in the ceremony, what is not so well known is shat this tough Gurkhas from Nepal. brief reign. Nevertheless, T Kingdom and the British Com- had a happy youth she has lived the aristocracy, along with the
once
thought in mind I propose now
one of my great-aunts dropped Edward VII entered upon his politically powerful Jarded for a quarter of a century, onwealth should attach a pro- through a period of grave tur-
However what I remember her book programme over the kingly responsibilities in a mood to describe the two coronation most gentry, is
is being rapidly try services that I have attended in steanation caused by the sud enter into a large gold cup be the ambigully of his gosition. He
vividly, was the con- side of the box.
It fell with a of despondency growing out of after my father George V find meaning to the crowning moil and trouble.
poverished by
1 confiscatory Westminster Abbey, that of my became king, I was separated derstandable.
laxation. The
den for
paradox
iliness of my grandfather grandfather roteining
Its the crown's
on the eve of the coronation it low, evoking among us children was a his sixtieth year-on age only by a single heartbeat pride with altem that their own
1902 and that of my father high position
a merriment which my mother when most men are thinking of IC- while the
princes The from the throne.
and monarchy, an institution which
George V In 1911 and if necessary sentatives
the for suppressed with a
stern back- retiring; his life had been passed of ali than PRITAIN after all her sacri- sources of the surrounding here. more than
under the shadow of the termen- ward glance. two kings states had in fout gathered
dous mure of his mother, Queen Roes back in lilstory a thousand years, has survived fices in two great struggles ditary system upon which it to show how these
brother George London bulletin the The coronation service lasted To the very end centuries with on behalf of the free world has rests are being steadily
der moulded and interpreted the pace when a 2 leti fro Ring almost forces on devine inted was descrmined or her the coronation service Itself, diminished!
and pussed from the summit of pleted has had the effect
of thut magnificent ritual of Church ignity
prestige
had perllyphlitis-what while other thrones power. The relationship of the leaving the monarchy more and monarchy each in his own way.
is now minable time for small boys to binden alone, and in consequence and state, going back through
country with
I was eight years old in June known its more isolated.
rs appendicitis and be expected to keep stil. Por there fell to him during his most thousand years of British his- have disappeared. But what has mother
1002 when my grandfather was had undergone an emergency-haps it was for that reason I vigorous years only the tory which has for its object the impressed ine particularly about Dominions has undergone pro-
to be crowned. Queen Victoria op
operation. In consequence the have no clear recollection the forthcoming coronation
of cründs of official dutite. consecration of the sovereign Queen Elizabeth II,
had died seventeen months be- euronation had to be postponed the service of his or her people.
my niece, once proud name of Empire is
fore. The Peaco of Vereniging, at the last hour. I well recall
my grandfather actually being Afterwards I was to IGHT up to the outbreak of enli
how
crowned, These malters I leave to others. is the extraordinary interest it no longer used. The vast sub-
in the midst of their hear my to has excited throughout the continent of Here my purpose is simply to
In May of the year. The Elizabeth It's great-great-
real landed familles, ennobled record my recollections of two world and especially in America.
was proclaimed earlier coronations that I attend- In my curiosity I have
not, as the case may be, all re- June twenty-sixth. only seventy-six years tained in great port the means to cussed this phenomenon with Westminster
Although
father had go and where her
grandfather American friends and sel
six my <Izk the basis
that two rea- held a great durbar in Delhi in of upholding the traditional way by then become Prince of Wales of my own expertórice, certain have concluded
celebration of his coronation has of life of their ancestors. True, my family were still living at the sons primarily account for it.
now become a republic. The some of the oldest families had York House, St James's Palace. functions and influence of the The first struck me as some India of Prime Minister Nehru depression after the first great and I had acquired a tutor, been bankrupted during the That spring my brother Bettie British crown in the twentieth what macabre. 1 K that in th
world of continuing England
this recumises the Queen of war, and their estates had pass- Henry Peter Hadsell, who took E coronation eventually took present-day
only $ stral and tension, with Britain
Its "rst et into the possession of what advantage of the bustle and citizen." In Malayo,
place on August 9 and be itscif nut yet rec
recovered from
ast they probably would have call- stir in London to try to teach Africa, the Middle East-there
cause of the postponement was Senreely something of ed "the new the aftermath of
rich." and the
the religious somewhat of an anti-climax. Dy is hardly a place where a once impact of drastic experimenin paramount British power is not
shakch
aspects of the that time the visiting royaltica by these premebitory and historical
THE HOMAGE lon [1 stotism,
life conenatian. He took us to the had long since departed to niece's hard pressed iny
P casualties. by the insatiable
*sumptuous
the Tower of London to see coronation ma well be the
may
last, drives of nationalism
their respective countries, and splendid entertain- and marked by 1 for one du not subscribe to so Communism, to say nothing of ments and sport continued to re- orown Jewels and other prices to reussarble them nil would noz MY parents had foresightedly different Prime Ministers, from gloomy a forchoding. Ir the the burden laid upon
Britain volve as in the past, around the of regalia that my grandparents have been practicable. Moreover, arranged for Mr Hansell and Lord Melbourne to Lord Salls- British monarchy can be said to herself
partner of the country stats of these old fami- would wear during the service, inasmuch as the King had not Finch to be posted nearby in the bury, with Mr-Disracl,
to fully recovered his strength, background demonstrated
Westminster Abbey lies, their Castles, their Abbeys, and to out- Western power in the struggle ceir Halls, their Courts, their see the 600-year-old Coronation the long coronation service was against our becoming too un great and forectul Liberal leader, 06 a precaution Gladstone in between. Even the standing quality it has been its against Soviet aggression. capacity to adapt itself to social
Drndl
Manor Chair which Edward I had had somewhat their The spate
curtalled. Bertie ruly. Once I looked up and Gladstone, approached Victoria's of commentary Parks
Houses. There was noout the preparations
never a built and on which all British and I were taken by Mr Hansell noticed Mr Hansell with his presence with caution and offen Before the first world war my change.
for my lack of relainers in livery to
the solitary to the Abbey in a sovereigns, with self- niece's coronation has caused me maintain faculty
cyes closed and his lips That
carriage.
moving family was constantly
the style never to ponder certain elements of with each estalo: to keep up the
associated exception of Mary Tudor, havo Finch, our valet, rode on the as ing and returning visits of what adaptation has perhaps
as in
me something less than victorious. than contrast which show the passing gardens art the forests; to run
that he wie con- By the end of her weigh the great we called "the
low the seat of this chair 13 royal red livery. As we were vinced our tutor was praying Queen had become in the eyes of host of in the turmoil of these postwar of time.
"Stone of Log I have been rather amused by the slables and garages; to take housed the famous
ot too young to be included in any not for the King but that the her sublects something more and today the Royst descendants who sprinkled the years.
rooms lled Destiny" which Edward I re- ruling houses of Europe. Family holds as firm a place as the controversy as to whether care of the great
Would with art treasures and affend to moved from the Abbey of Scone slipped thrusions we were Archbishop would last through their sovereign, she had come to
through television
a back en the service. In the affections of the
persunity Great Britain self. As
Kalser ever boy I ABW
equipment be
In Scotland. According the wants of the guests.
to trance into the royal box, re- permitted inside the first British people.
Given such a formidable pre- father's Wilhelm II, my
Abbey.
It is interesting to
As Prince of Wales I often legend the stone served as served for the Princesses, to the After the placing of the decesser her son may well have cousin. al a shooting party
the squires of pillow for the patriarch Jacob right of the altar. note in this connection that not alopped with
the King's Read the felt that this tum, when at last it al Sandringham, 2011 occa-
until my father's coronation in many of these placed with the when he dreamt of a ladder.
In front of the box was a dais most impressive incident in the came, had arrived too late. sion also memorable 10 me
heaven. Even that on which stood the two ornale coronatlan servies is, the act of 1011 was
photography allowed Duke of Marlborough at Blen- reaching for my Brst ride in a horse-
Palace, the Duke of vigorous regicide Oliver Crom- Chairs of Estate to be used by my homage of the heir apparent less carriage. I remember the THE other reason partakes of to be used as a means
of re- helm
Sutherland Dunrobin Castle, well used this same chair when grandparents for the first part of when he is of age to render it. and 1 the familiar substance.of.a cording the service itself. visit of Czar Nicholas II with his family to Cowes only eight fairy tale. A young queen-only imagine there must have ensued the Duke of Portland of Wel he was installed as Lord Pro- the ceremony, My father took his In a moment of hush my mother years before this unfortunate twenty-seven-ascends a great the same kind of solemn dis- beck Abbey, the Earl of Dudley tector.
place in front of the peers of bent down to whisper to us, at Himley Hell, over the propriety of
Earl Mr Hansell's historical dis- the realm, between the Duke of "Now Papa will do homage to instuding all rights under Pan- Emperor, another of my father's throne. In the felicitous phrase cussion
Beauchamp at there introducing such an innovation. Court, Lord Brownlow as Belton
Madresfield courses held our attention up to Cambridge and the Duke of Grandpapa," first cousies, was murdered by an Amerlena Journal,
a point, but Bertie and I were Connaught, both distinguished the Bolsheviks. The dashing has appeared " fresh young
Park and the Duke of Beaufort much more interested in all the royal soldiers. The Duke of al Badminton House.
hammering and other activities Cambridge, my mother's uncle By tra
tradition this landed in connection
with the pre George, who was then eighty- provides both a aristocracy parents, as Prince and Princesa who was only eighteen when of the sharp exchange between monarchy.
background and selling for the In a sense they are of Wales, had in fact ridden in she came to the throne in 1837, Henry, sixth Marquess of Bath, complementary one to the other. Alfonso's wedding procession in has Britain had so young
who was determined to ride to From the ranks of the aristocracy Madrid In
when nonare. Victoria lived to the the coronation in his 1000
the Great Ofteers of State, ancient come anarchist'
burst #318
bomb
of eighty-one. Her reight, under the King's coach, killing the longest In British
frenly coach and six, and the the Lant Steward, the Master of annals,
metropollian police who were the Horse, the Lord Chamberlain many people but sparing him lasted into the second year of C and his British bride. And
century,
Com equally determined that this out- and until recently most of the woded vehicle should not clutter courtiers who serve the sover- plump and jovial King Carles the twentieth
bined with the mature age of up their male of Portugal, who in 1908 met an her two immediate
and parking eign in his household. In their sovereign untimely end from an assassin's it had the effect of giving the grandfather's coronation in 1902 could always expect to
successors, arrangements. However at my ancestral homes the büllet, was also during my monarchy middle-aged, even more than
noble lord made royally entertained. childhood a guest of Sandring ham. While I was an under elderly nura.
history and drew upon himself grandfather was nifty the dirty looks of his fellow graduate at Oxford I was called nine ht his acccasion and peers by arriving at the Abbey to Windsor Castle by my father
to he sixty-eight. when he entertained the elegant lived
My in n a spluttering motor car. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir father was forty-four when his
How different the picture now! Among the survivors of long-H apparent
Many of the stately homes of of the Austro un came and had passed his
his past British military campaigns Hungarian Empire. Likewise to seventieth year when he died who will be pres
present In the Brilam have passed under the meet his fate before an assassin'
or been in 1930. I was forty-one when Abbey will be my Uncle Alge, auctioneer's hammer National
by the the succession felt to me, bomb at Sarajevo in 1914.
and the Earl of Athlone, who fought taken over
others Trust. In many iny brother. Berile
three WAS days short of that are when he with the cavalry in the Boer squire and his family have res
He War, It is sobering to reflect took my place. It is not sur- thut that wir is new further treated perhaps to one of
Therefore prising, THE monarchies personiled by advent of this girl, only seven
in time from my nieco's wings, or to the housekeeper's old quarters, the lodge keeper's than Was tho or the gardener's cottage, or these rulers and many others years older at the time of her Crimean War from my grand- in more fortunate circumstances have all vanished. The Bra accession than was Queen Vic father's.
to the dower house. What is Kanza throne of Portugal was toria, and precisely the same the first to go-by revolution age as was
Other changes of even deeper left of the shooting has in most as was the great Virgagnificance
will no doubt be cases been rented out. The re- in 1910, a few months after my Queen" whose name she bears, visible.
While the father's urcension.
outward tainers--those who have not been Young King should have fired the imaginas magnificence of this coronation pensioned off have scattered into Manuel, Carlos' surviving son, tion of America where youth is will remain, the old foundations the factories and farms. In a for-
his paluce.
taking almost idealised and that la her of opulence and privilege upon orn effort to develop additional refuge in Gibraltar, Agalnat own Kingdom and the British the advice
which the ceremony rested in income and to save their homes of his Foreign Commonwealth
my grandfather's and Minister, who was anxious to token as a happy augury
from becoming my
ruins many a tu father's time have been under- British squiro today makes a range British polley on the side those familiar with the famous mined. Testifying to the reduced practies of throwing
open his of the new Portuguese Republic, my father sent his royal yacht, pras presided over by those two circumstances of many of the ancestral house and garden to the Victoria and Albert, 10 Bovereign ladies.
aristocracy and officialdom in week-end sightseers, grateful for
11 general,
the concession the admission dees and whatever recent Court else can be gismered from the car regulation permitting the wear park.
trimmed, not The decline in the fortunes of with traditional ermine, but the landed gentry has tended three minor German Kingdoms, The year was 1920. It was spring
stances of my niece's birth. with rabbit skins. together with the Hapsburgs in and I was in Biarritz recuperal- Austria, the Romanova Russia
Montenegrin 21 there came to me from of PUT even more revealing of Buckingham Palace he sent this throne.
Midway between the two York, a telegram announcing the changed atmosphere In el almost despairingly, world wars the proud Spanish happily the birth in London af which this ancient ceremony kind of thing goes on at Ita Bourbons fell by revolution in his ftist child, a
daughter, will take place is a recent present rate I may one day final 1931. So swiftly that an invita Elizabeth. My parents wete AL tion to me from King Alfonso Windsor Castle. They hurried mument by a former socialist myself in the unenviable post- rainister of the crown, White Lion of being the last private to break a journey back from immediately to the York's house professing "the highest respect land owner in the country."
America
and spend on Bruton Street, in London, to
to for the young Queen" ha In the nature of things every Easter with him In Seville was welcome
their
grandchild, describes the aristocracy as sovereign intrritably becomes overtaken by his abdication; They were overjoyed and "doomed and airtast damned," the symbol of the era fpinned Instead of my being his guest at wrote me all about the baby. He has therefore proposed that by his or her reign. However the Alcazar 1.joined him in But their joy at this happy thateid of leaving with the - this is not to my that under a hotel at Fontainebleau whither family event
hareditary nobles
the
Incontitulion wherein a mohatéh he had led, balled by the mediately clouded by a grave merrorial rights to carry at thỏ rules but does not govern, tile nature of the events which had national crisis.
Coronation Service the swords, crown Nbcontärity *domikaïda
of.
Alfonso t of Spain, who mar blossom on roots that had UNDERMINED
one of my father's first weathered many a rled cousins, often came to Britain wintry doubt."
to shed or play polo.
UPHEAVAL
THE
Bed
bring the
to
tain.
exiled
ot season
My Not since Queen Victoria, I
monarch
My
furn
that the
should
the safety of Great Br HAPPY EVENT
The cataclysm of World
War I accounted for the house
South
Hohenzollern and the
ond the
HAVE also been fascinated by accounts in the British press
implet
in
ona
of robes WELL remember the cfreum Ing.
in Ing from an operation. On April ARISTOCRACY
brother Bertle, then
was almost
my
1
.01
DIFFERENT
be
the
the
to leave tho monarch and his .court more or less marooned. So remeralessly has this pro- cm continued that the last time I saw my brother Bertie at
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT SATURDAY
(Copyright 1989. World Copyright
American Copyright Convention With that the intricate and reserved. Reproduction in part tedious ceremony tool on for us or in full in all languages strictly a personal meaning. We watch- prohibited. By arrangement with ed na my father, in his crimson the London Sunday Express)
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